Unitus Leads HR Discussion on Microfinance in India

Owing to the inherent difficulties of working to solve the intractable problems of poverty and economic development, the successful development of a high functioning staff at all levels of an organization is a critical element of a microfinance institution’s ability to operate.  With an appreciation of this dynamic and the tools necessary to foster growth, several members of the Unitus team and partner network lead the discourse at the Federation of India Chambers of Commerce & Industry Conference on Financial Inclusion: Scaling MFI Activity by Strengthening Human Resources on the 21-22 of January in Delhi.  

Following an agenda that examined issues including Recruitment & Training, Compensation & Benefits, Organizational Structure & Succession Planning, and Culture & Ethics, attending MFIs—ranging from established players to start-ups—took in a panel discussion on each topic then retired into small workshop groups focused on particular issues under those headings.  

Ganesh Rengaswamy (second to left)

Ganesh Rengaswamy, Unitus’s VP and India Country Director who lead the panel discussion on Compensation & Benefits, said the event raised just as many thought provoking questions as it answered with regard to the most crucial resources of a microfinance institution, its people. “There was a lot of good discussion around compensation approach in the context of overall business strategy, incentives approach - short term vs. long term, individual vs. team incentives, deferred bonus, how do incentives balance qualitative vs. quantitative goals,” he said, “and yet, after discussing the technical specifics we were left debating whether microfinance should get rid of cash incentives all together.”

“Cash, non-cash, general compensation design – all issues critical to the growth of microfinance – were given due consideration” he continued.

On the workshop side, Unitus’s HR Practice Manager Gazal Vishwanath facilitated several workshop discussions, each providing participants with a better understanding of the space and yielding new insights on topics including: "Demand/ Supply matching and accessing data sources for large scale recruitments", as well as "Non-cash incentives."

Gazal Vishwanath facilitating at FICCI

“There was definitely diversity in the approaches taken by different MFIs, some succeeding where others failed using the same methods and tools under different circumstances,” remarked Gazal, “as the facilitators, our goal was to encourage the group to identify optimal solutions that both met the needs of their respective organizations.”

In addition to the Unitus staff, executives from two partner MFIs participated in the event, Samit Ghosh of Ujjivan and PN Vasudevan of Equitas.  Mr. Ghosh lead the panel discussion on Organizational Structure & Succession Planning as well as facilitated a workshop on Scaling up organizations, while Mr. Vasudevan spoke during the conference’s closing session.

For more information on the event or Unitus’s HR Advisory practice, please contact Gazal Vishwanath at gvishwanath@unitus.com